Post date: Feb 07, 2011 2:14:15 AM
U.S. President Barack Obama says he is confident that an orderly political transition in Egypt would produce a government that will remain a U.S. partner.
WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES (FEBRUARY 6, 2011) FOX NEWS - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Sunday (February 6) he was confident that an orderly political transition in Egypt would produce a government that will remain a U.S. partner.
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Obama said only Mubarak, who took power in 1981, knew if he would leave office soon."Egypt is not going to go back to what it was," the U.S. leader said. "The Egyptian people want freedom, they want free and fair elections, they want a representative government, they want a responsible government. So what we have said is, you have to start a transition now."
Obama also said the ideology of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, which is President Hosni Mubarak's best organized opposition group, included anti-U.S. strains.
But the Brotherhood lacked majority support, he said.
"So it's important for us not to say that our only two options are either the Muslim Brotherhood or a suppressed Egyptian people," he said.
"What I want is a representative government in Egypt and I have confidence that if Egypt moves in an orderly transition process, that we'll have a government in Egypt that we can work with together as a partner."
Egypt's vice president, Omar Suleiman, a long-time intelligence chief, held unprecedented talks with the Brotherhood, an Islamist group, and other opponents on Sunday as demonstrators in Cairo's Tahrir Square, marking a "Day of Martyrs" for those killed in protests, said they would intensify their 13-day battle to end Mubarak's rule.
Mubarak has vowed to stay on until elections in September.